Song Review:: Nomad: Carnival

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  • Release date: 2025 February 28
  • Album tracklist: Carnival
  • Album runtime: 4 minutes

 Well, I'm pretty excited about the fact that they dropped another single. I'm tentatively hopeful by the title that this is going to be a fun song. For those of you who didn't catch my previous Nomad review, Nomad is pretty close to being an indie K-Pop group. The leader and the CEO were the ones to pick up the other four members. They were all adults at debut (thankfully because the photoshoot for their debut album was...a thing), but several of them trained at other companies, one of which was SM. Two of them were on different survival shows. And I deeply admire them for filming their struggles at debut because it was a lot harder than they expected it to be. The leader is also their producer and he is very exacting and deliberate, but he's got a great ear and the members seem to trust him.

Okay. I was expecting something a bit more energetic and instead we've got a ballad. I will never say no to a ballad, but it was a surprise. If this is the direction that they're moving in, I'm not going to say no. But it's like an electro-ballad, which is an interesting combination of genres. The low pulse settled down in the instrumentals is enjoyable and keeps the song well-grounded, even when the already somewhat mild instrumentals step further away from the spotlight. And I get a nice little taste of strings.

Happy is not the default emotion of the typical ballad. This one seems to be appropriately titled, because there's a soft sense of celebration with the vocals. But they sound really good. I like that they're showing off their vocals with the last set of singles they've put out. But also, their strategy with their debut mini album was to release most of the songs as singles before they actually debuted, so I'm curious to see if this will also be their strategy with their next album. If that's the case, then they're demonstrating a good range of sound and ability. 

This doesn't have a music video to accompany the single, so here is the audio track.



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